[iDC] seed patents, Indian farmer suicides, and the future of Iraq

[Nancy Scola]

I'm sitting here a bit amazed about how much this discussion has helped me
to understand a piece I myself wrote.  A few thoughts...

I'd push back some on the idea that if we're stipulating the goal to be
reducing the pain that 'modern' economic and agricultural practices are
inflicting upon not only farmers but a wide swath of the world's population,
that what we're in great need of here are solutions, necessarily. I'm biased
by the fact that my professional background is in politics, but from where I
stand these problems are in large part political and social ones. It seems
to me that we're far richer in technocratic solutions than we are in the
understandings that would impel those solutions to take hold. I'd hold up
the farm bill that recently passed in the United States that perpetuated the
same subsidy system that queers global agricultural markets. (Which leads of
course to what Regis wrote about -- having to compete against prices that
don't match production costs.) Congress was able to pass that bill because
against the great mass that is the agricultural lobby there exists a void of
public understanding of the effects of the policy.

Simply put, we're running up against an assumption that an innovation like
GM crops is necessarily designed to benefit farmers/national agricultural
systems. In my opinion, there still exists the wide-spread belief that
globalization is aimed at bettering the status of the many, and that when
the opposite occurs it's a system malfunction -- rather than that being the
end result the system is engineered to achieve. (I'm not making a judgment
here on malice -- that's a conversation for a whole other time, I think.)
It's a similar understanding that I think you find in debate over the
control of creative content (patents, copyright, etc.) And again, I'd argue
that changing the starting points for these discussion, in the U.S. at
least, is a political question.

I'll admit that I don't know enough about farming to know if looking for
alternate ways of funding capital-intensive agriculture (like micro-credit
or P2P lending) is the way to proceed, or if doing that while U.S./E.U.
subsidies persist is like working busily to remodel your kitchen while your
house burns. But those approaches are so fascinating to me not as solutions,
but as ways of raising awareness about the largely invisible economic system
we live in. Same goes for the ideas raised in these emails concerning
"public domain" seeds, GM-is-to-India as high-tech--is-to-Africa, and
capital-intensive farming that isn't GM-driven. You've all just given me
ideas for at least a few more articles, so thanks so much for that. :)

(Regis, as far as Monsanto's presence in India is concerned, what I've found
is that the company was able to overcome the government's resistance to
their presence in 2005; more on that here --
http://www.hindu.com/2005/05/21/stories/2005052103121300.htm, for example. I
certainly don't know enough about Indian politics to make sense of why that
happened.)


-Nancy


On 9/23/07, regis lemberthe <lemberthe at inbox.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Nancy, Andreas and Ryan (and all the others)
>
> I hope I understood the entirety of your messages pretty well since
> english isn't my native language; anyhow, I want to enter this debate in
> which I'll have to get involved during a full year. I am indeed doing a
> thesis in design related to the topic of preserving seeds and the people who
> grow them.
>
> The first thing which surprises me when reading Nancy's article is that
> Monsanto seems to have been able to implement their patented seeds in India;
> yet I have been reading a book written in 2004 by Vandana Shiva, in which
> she explained that the Indian politics were excluding any intellectual
> property rights over appplications related to both medicine and agriculture.
> Does it mean that these politics have been changed since then ? If so, could
> you tell me more about the new reglementation ? If not, how could Monsanto
> allow themselves to overgo Indian laws ?
>
> European Union has also been mention a few times, therefore I'd like to
> precise the actual situation of european agriculture, and politics related
> to this issue, as this is getting quite worrying for agricultural systems
> which don't rely on agro-industry. The union has been overproducing since
> the seventies, principaly aiming the export market; yet european
> agricultural products aren't able to compete with cheaper ones coming from
> developing countries. This led our governments to adopt a support system
> based on "restitutions", allowing the common fund to directly pay the
> producer so that he can earn money from his activity while still exporting
> on a low rate. This is no more the sale of the products which gives the
> farmer his salary, but the union. The situation could still be almost
> acceptable if the aids were not distributed in priority to the biggest
> industries.
>
> The fact is, these politics oriented towards exportation endanger small
> european farmers, but also those in developing countries who have to compete
> with prices which don't fit the actual production cost, when their own
> countries don't have the financial means to support them in the same way.
> This is why some countries known as the "Cairn's group", together with the
> US, are trying to lobby in order to dismantle this politic.
>
> There is another issue I would like to discuss about; several times in
> your messages you aggreed to state that the issue could only have a
> political answer - though Andreas also told about micro-initiatives, which
> according to me work as an answer to existing troubles but in no case as a
> way to prevent them.
>
> Anyway, Like you I believe this is relevant to the political level; yet I
> am convinced that adequate political decisions only come when the population
> as a whole asks for them - the reason why lobbies don't put the pressure
> only on governments anymore but try to involve the public as much as
> possible.
>
> While working on my thesis, and even though this is only a young project,
> I could set my aim as a designer as such : raising awareness about this
> issue for the greater amount of population possible, so that the topic
> becomes of public interest - just like global warming or organic cotton
> (organic cotton ? Maybe there's a track to follow...)
>
> I don't know what is the state of mind of Vidarbha people concerning
> patented seeds and the savekeeping of their agriculture; is this become a
> real topic for debate ? How much do they talk about it ? What is getting
> organized ? I am quite convinced that already many of them are trying to
> invent solutions to the problem. I think the real question - which shouldn't
> make us forgetting the ones before - is : what counterpower will they - or
> we if we decide to get involved - be able to provide ?
>
> I think this power can only grow bigger if people on both sides of the
> consuming pattern feel concerned. That implies the final consumer.
>
> Well I'm just happy I could read your opinions on the topic, I still have
> a bunch of monthes to try approaching the issue, hopefully from both sides.
> I'd be very happy if those of you who are interested in the issue would stay
> in touch with me all along the year; any reaction is of great value to me.
>
> On a more practical level, and I guess this is mostly destinated to Nancy,
> I'd like to ask you to share the contacts you could have during working on
> this issue, Vandana Shiva's one of course and everyone who could relate to
> the topic.
>
> Thank you for reading !
>
> Regis
>
>
> lemberthe regis
> lemberthe at inbox.com
> 0031648741915
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